John Hart is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Here he discusses the role of academic institutions in driving the additive manufacturing industry forward.

Manufacturing is arguably more important and exciting than ever; it is critical to economic growth and to the sustainable growth of our world. The convergence of innovations in robotics, computational intelligence, instrumentation, advanced materials, and new processes is enabling production systems to become more agile, responsive, and data-driven. Additive manufacturing (AM) is a cornerstone of the factory of the future, and offers a unique platform for deploying digital technologies for amplified productivity gains.

In the past year, many developments indicate a turning point toward the industrialisation of AM. These include major partnerships across the value chain—including design tools, materials, and equipment—and the emergence of novel, high-speed AM processes. Moreover, volume production of parts using AM will soon be a widespread reality. Examples include the scale-up of GE’s LEAP engine which incorporates 3D printed fuel nozzles, and adidas’ partnership with Carbon on the Futurecraft 4D shoe. Countless companies are using AM to improve the efficiency of manufacturing operations using advanced mould tooling and custom fixtures, and to accelerate product development and market testing.

These and other demonstrations of AM’s value are driving increased confidence in AM as a production method. Of course, challenges remain, especially in part qualification, post-processing, and surface finishing. Advances in computation and in-process instrumentation are the lynchpin for AM’s ability to reliably produce high-quality, qualified parts: new software will permit upfront simulation of builds, allowing improved design and mitigation of defects; advanced scanning methods will accelerate post-build inspection, and enable digitisation of legacy designs; and, automation is increasingly affordable and deployable into AM-based production systems, a necessary development for increasing throughput and reducing the labor cost of post-processing.

As we master AM’s physical and digital workflows, unexpected possibilities emerge. The interoperability of an AM-enabled factory – its ability to produce diverse parts while adjusting only the machine’s digital input – will create new business models and establish new vectors for the customer to influence the design process. We must envision what AM may produce that it cannot at present, and chart a course for realising the previously impossible: from building individual replacement parts for appliances and vehicles to patient-specific medicines and tissues delivered at the point-of-care. And while the cost-equivalence of AM to traditional forming methods may never approach the largest volumes of consumer products, the responsiveness and reduced risk of industrial AM requires us to build models that effectively capture its end-to-end value.

Academic institutions, such as MIT, have a critical role to play in driving the AM industry forward, and in creating its unknown future possibilities. My research group at MIT is focused at the intersection of materials, processes, and automation for advanced manufacturing. Our recent work includes a high-speed extrusion AM process for polymers and composites, AM of cellulose-based materials as an alternative to conventional thermoplastics, concepts for modular high-precision interfaces among AM parts, and an instrumented testbed for selective laser melting that will enable us to derive new process control strategies. More generally, the Boston area is home to exciting startups in this space – including Desktop Metal, Formlabs, Markforged, Onshape, Righthand Robotics, Rize, and Voxel8 -- many of which have involved MIT faculty and students as co-founders, and provide examples of the ability to drive innovative ideas to market.

We’re also focused on education, and created a project-based AM course and a professional short course, “Additive Manufacturing: From 3D Printing to the Factory Floor,” that has trained hundreds of designers, engineers, and executives to understand and deploy AM technologies in their organisations. We are proud of this work, but it is a drop in the bucket. The workforce needs self-paced, digitally delivered, and technically rich educational programs that are adaptable to full-time students and busy professionals alike. Moreover, in Fall 2017 we will launch the MIT Center Additive and Digital Advanced Production Technologies (ADAPT), which will focus on breakthrough research, open education, and technical strategy. By uniting the efforts of universities, startups, and industry, we will best be able to advance our vision of AM and the factory of the future, and create commercial value at a pace that matches our imagination.